


A Soul Displaced

by ominousrum



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Canon Universe, Dark One Emma Swan, Dark Swan Arc, F/M, Heavy Angst, Underworld spec fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-27
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9792947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ominousrum/pseuds/ominousrum
Summary: Days fall through her. Days of shouting and raging and futility. Days of willing herself to feel nothing, staring at walls. Days where flickers of hope are bitten back by bitter tears. She doesn’t keep count until the day they find a way to reach him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous tumblr prompt "“Killian ignore him, listen to ME!” 
> 
> all thanks to Isilweth for her invaluable beta'ing.

She tries to stop him, eyes ablaze with fear and selfish fury. She wants to run in front of the blade herself (if only she’d been quick enough). The thunder in his voice catches her attention as panic makes clear its intent to drown her.

“ _No_. I have to do this.” (The Dark Ones rage inside her skull, hissing at her to keep her power).

“Killian-“

“For you. For _everyone_.” (Their power rolls over her in waves, longing to leak out through her fingers).

“I need you here. Alive.” (She’s drowning, drowning, **_drowning_** as they laugh at her weakness).

“It’s my turn to be the hero, Swan.”  His smile is so tired; hundreds of years gathering in the edges of his mouth, beating a path from the corners of his eyes. 

She feels the darkness loose within her; a bird distraught, crashing its wings into every surface. Escape is near.

She wants to hold him ( _if she holds him tight enough, he won’t leave her_ ) but power is surging, crackling in her bones.  It’s all funneling through him – her true love – and she can do nothing. A saviour paralyzed. _Dried up, useless._

She shakes her head, willing herself to turn away. Wishing she didn’t have to watch him die again.

He gives her one last look as the life drains from him; fearing nothing, doubting nothing. She sees years of happiness in his eyes, a thousand different lifetimes he would gladly spend with her shining back. Sobs root themselves in her spine, breaking her irrevocably as his name dies on her lips.

He’s gone with not even a body left to mourn, no face to cradle in her anguish. The darkness has burned clean through her. Her soul scrubbed raw, bleeding into spaces where ancient evil once dwelt.

She kneels as Emma Swan, black leather replaced with red, darkness now absent. The light lies dormant though; receding further and further from the surface. Her light – her love – now lost.

***

 

Days fall through her. Days of shouting and raging and futility. Days of willing herself to feel nothing, staring at walls. Days where flickers of hope are bitten back by bitter tears. She doesn’t keep count until the day they find a way to reach him.

They’re all there to help her. No, to help _him_. They’re resigned to risk their lives for a centuries old pirate. She imagines his face responding to their motley crew (the cocked eyebrow, the uncertain but grateful smile) and her chest constricts, the desperate ache growing.

It turns out hell is a lot easier to access than they all expected. Though the ritual has splayed the boundaries open, Storybrooke now at the very mouth. Later, they tell themselves. This will be righted after this particular fight is over. Heroes and villains uniting to rescue one of their own.  

They finally find him, battling their way past beasts and magic and unspeakable horrors. Their foes are all here (Regina hissed “Mother” like she expected nothing less when Cora popped up for a chat), but the worst ones are in their own heads. Killian Jones looks as though he’s lived another 200 years since she last looked upon his face, tortured and sullen.

They need to size up the best way to get to him (she’s silenced lest they lose the element of surprise). He sits, knees level with his chin, among the chaos. He doesn’t look their way, doesn’t look anywhere but his own hook; fire dancing in the mirrored steel. She doesn’t notice the other figure at first – figures here seem to remain largely fluid, bending their shapes as needed.

**_Pan._ **

Her blood begins to sizzle. ( _Patience, love_ ).

“I knew from the moment I met you that you’d end up here, Captain,” Pan snarls, eyes aglow in delight.

“Jealous I amounted to more than you bloody well could, then?” Killian spits, a glimmer of his old smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

“What, you mean saving that lot of imbeciles? Oh, well done there. I’m sure they stopped their lives for all of sixty seconds to give you a proper farewell.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’ll go on to do better things, save themselves.”

“How touching. Meanwhile you’re here for eternity. Seems like you got the short end of the stick there, _mate_.” Pan’s laugh echoes off the walls around them; she can see Killian’s jaw clench tighter.

“Guess again.” Emma’s voice escapes her a fraction before magic, instinctual and incandescent, flows from her towards Pan. He twists, even more nimble than his shadow as he slips out of her reach.

Killian is on his feet but on guard, not daring to meet her gaze.  

“Well isn’t this a sight for sore eyes. The saviour. Oh, I guess I can’t technically call you that anymore, can I?” Pan’s grin stretches and stretches like a Cheshire cat, hideous and unescapable. “Anti-saviour? Reformed Dark One?”

“Call me whatever you want, just get out of my damn way. We’re here for Hook.”

He turns to her then, looking straight through her. It chills her veins to ice.

“Did you hear that, Captain? Maybe you still have some use.” Pan huffs, face inches from the furrowed brow of her pirate. “Tell me Unsavior, what part of your next quest to save the world needs dear old Hookie here as a willing but woefully expendable pawn?

“He doesn’t belong here. We’re taking him back.”

“Convincing, but no. You don’t really expect me to believe you all travelled here for this waste of space?” Pan pokes him in the chest. She hears plans being made behind her, exit strategies whispered. She just needs to break through.

“Killian?” She tries to reach him, pull him to the surface of his mind. His eyes dart wildly, like an animal fearful of becoming prey.

“Too bad they’re not really here, isn’t it, Captain?” Pan taunts.

“Here.” Killian repeats, mind still millions of miles away.

“We are here, Killian. You deserve more than this. You _are_ more than this.”

“Maybe if you were more than a one-handed pirate with a drinking problem…” The vitriol steadily increasing in Pan’s voice as it looms around them.

“Killian, we came to bring you _home_.” She doesn’t know when the tears started but they’re streaming now, pooling at her collar bone, vision wavering.

“Just a lost boy who’ll never amount to anything. Only useful as a means to an end.”

“Killian, ignore him – listen to me!” Pleading now, inching closer as Pan flies around them.

“Pity you were destined to sink to the bottom. Found your natural level.” She wants to pull Pan’s head clean off his body, if only she could. If only he was flesh and bone still, not full fiend.  

Muttered curses and flashes of light and Pan is suddenly dissipating before her eyes. She feels all of them behind her, trusting in her strength. Emma Swan trusts in his as she lays her hand gently on his chest, searching his face. “Hook?”

_Please please please please._

Blue crystallizes and cracks, pupils dilating as they take her in. “ _Swan?_ ”

Cheeks hurt from smiling as she nods. “Let’s go home.”

He crushes her to him, face buried in her hair. “Maybe I do deserve a happy ending after all.”


End file.
